Opinel Mushroom Knife

$32.00

Quantity

A classic Opinel Mushroom Foraging Knife produced in France just as it has been for more than 115 years. With a handy brush to remove dirt, the knife blade s curved to precisely cut tender fresh mushrooms. (It can also be used when foraging for truffles!)

7 7/8" extended. Blade measures 2 3/4", 5" folded.

The Opinel knife is a simple wooden handled pocket-knife, invented by Joseph Opinel in about 1895. It has been manufactured ever since in the town of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne in the Savoie region of France and the company is still run today by the Opinel family.

The construction of the knife is very simple, consisting of only four components: the blade, the wooden handle, a metal band with a rivet on which the blade pivots, and a locking collar that holds the blade in place when the knife is open - preventing the blade from accidentally closing in use.

The Opinel knife has long been a feature of everyday French culture. In fact the word opinel has even entered the French language, with its recent inclusion in the Collins–Robert French–English Dictionary. In 1985 the Victoria and Albert Museum in London published its “Good Design Guide”, a collection of the “100 most beautiful products in the world”. One of those products is the Opinel knife. It is also exhibited in New York's Museum of Modern Art as a masterpiece of design, alongside other industrial objects which have defied time. The simple but ingenious design, which has remained virtually unchanged for a century or more, is widely felt to have made the Opinel into a design classic.